Living with Loops
by bor902
Summary: Gilderoy would have never suspected that the innocuous act of giving an autograph would send him hurtling into a time loop where he would experience his first real adventure. But if he had to give the same autograph again..., he probably would
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

 **Edited by: 5th dimension**

* * *

Gilderoy knew the memory charm quite well. It was the basis of everything he'd built up in his life, after all, the only thing he was talented enough at that he bothered to pursue it.

So when he uttered the word " _Obliviate,"_ he knew something had gone wrong. Now that he thought about it, stealing the Weasley's held-together-by-tape wand probably hadn't been the best idea.

Thoughts flitted through his head as the spell set to reach its crescendo, the pale green light flashing up. It would backfire, Gilderoy knew. It was a feeling deep inside his bones. So he did the only thing he could do that would not result in him losing all his memories.

A great explosion rang out as he overloaded the wand the instant it would have successfully formed the spell. Losing his memories would mean the end after all. Suffering some physical damage while attempting to valiantly save one of his younger students was something he could come back from.

Though he underestimated the strength of the explosion.

It threw him backwards into one of the walls like Thor's hammer had been thrown at him from Asgard. He managed to glimpse the horrified looks of the two boys who'd held him at wand point before they too were blown back.

Gilderoy managed to get himself together after the tunnel ahead of him finished noisily collapsing. "Gilderoy Lockhart succeeds once again," he managed to slur out, thanking himself for the fact that the robes he'd worn on that day carried several defensive enchantments. _The innate magic resistance of an adult had something to do with it as well_ , piped out his long-buried Hogwarts education.

His two students, however, weren't as lucky or prepared as him. Lying on the ground, dead as they were.

Gilderoy stumbled forward and searched Potter for his wand, before it became completely unusable from the blood spreading through the boy's clothes. The wand promptly overheated in his hand and sent out sparks until he let go with a yelp. It clattered to the floor as he nursed his hand.

"Bloody wands." Gilderoy looked around, quickly regaining his fear as he once again looked upon the gigantic shed skin of Slytherin's monster. "What now?" he muttered, stumbling back towards the entrance. The entrance he couldn't reach due to the lack of stairs and couldn't open due to not being a parseltongue.

That was rather unfortunate, but while he'd never actually gone on any adventures, he had still written several books about them. And while he had spent a great part of those books educating others on his greatness, adventure was still a hefty secondary priority.

And so he quickly concluded, upon glimpsing a a secondary tunnel leading somewhere, that the basilisk needed more than just one entrance and exit. The victims had been on different floors after all, and he doubted the thing was capable of climbing the castle's moving staircases.

Decision made, Gilderoy quickly hobbled away into the tunnel, unwilling to wait there for what would either be a cadre of teachers, all curious about how two students had died, or a dark wizard that went around petrifying muggleborns with the help of a bloody basilisk. He glanced back at the two corpses one last time, before descending into the dark tunnel that made him wish really hard his wand hadn't been taken away and left in his office.

"Boys, you can remember this day as the day you _almost_ caught Gilderoy Lockhart, the greatest adventurer alive." Gilderoy hummed to himself his theme song and walked along the tunnel as it slowly grew large enough for him not to have to crouch anymore.

" _Battling with Basilisks._ " No. Upon coming to an intersection he chose one that lead downwards. Everyone else went upwards, but not he! Gilderoy was running from something, and it wouldn't do to be predictable.

" _The tragic tale of Gilderoy Lockhart's failure;_ getting back up after falling, the adventurer extraordinaire reflects upon one of his most costly failures. Three children left dead, a hero scarred. A reflection upon the whimsy success of past adventurers and the disastrous consequences of the Hogwarts Escapade." Didn't that sound grand.

Gilderoy doubted he could spin this into a success very easily, so the only option left to him was to create the most heart-wrenching failure of his career. People loved to identify themselves with the protagonist, and what better way than to have the protagonist lose? A tear escaped his eye as he thought about all the encouraging fanmail he would be receiving in the near future.

Of course that was the moment that the floor disappeared from under him, and he lost consciousness as his head cracked against something in the short tumble.

-/-

The first thing that Gilderoy did when he came to himself was go into a sitting position and check the throbbing spot at the back of his head. It came away wet, warm, and red.

He was capable of perceiving the redness not only because of the brightness of his smile that had won him the Witch's Weekly Most-Charming-Smile-Award, five times! But also because of the presence of what appeared to be an ugly ghost shining around in the middle of the room.

Unacceptable. Who was this extra, and why were they attempting to outshine him? Gilderoy rearranged his dishevelled hair into a semblance of order and strutted up to the ghost. Its facial features greatly resembled a monkey. This would be easy then.

He puffed himself up and ignored his dirtied clothes, preening at the ghost with a wide smile. Even dirtied and rumpled, his clothes still looked better than the rags the ghost was wearing.

 _I'll see you try to outmatch this,_ he thought to himself. The only thing even slightly resembling proper clothing on it was the cape covering the things back. With the Slytherin crest no less. It stood no chance against his colour-coordinated ensemble.

"What art thou doing?" asked the ghost.

Gilderoy had considered that the ghost might have been a student that had been born with the terrifying condition of supreme ugliness, but the voice was too old. A deceased head of house? It seemed honestly confused as well, but Gilderoy had experience with people trying to get close to him by pretending to neither know who he was, nor what he was doing.

"Me, Gilderoy Lockhart, Order of Merlin, Third Class, Honorary Member of the Dark Force Defence League, and five-time winner of Witch Weekly's Most-Charming-Smile Award-but I don't talk about that. I didn't get rid of the Bandon Banshee by smiling at her." He gave the now even more confused-looking ghost his patented smile accompanied by a wink. "But you knew that already of course. Where do you want your autograph?"

"Whomst've?" Hesitation, but then the ghost pointed at the centre of the dank room, filled with rotting bookshelves containing oddly preserved books, where lay a spear jutting out from the ground. A skeleton laid beneath it, a corpse that had seemingly died impaled on the spear.

The oddly evil looking, glowing spear. With several organic eyes blinking closed and open on the shaft.

"That be my spear. I hesitate to ask this but I would like to receive my autograf there." The ghost lisped out the word autograph like he didn't know the word. But at least he'd admitted to being his fan. Not that Gilderoy hadn't known beforehand of course.

Everyone was his fan!

He jaunted over to the spear under the suddenly-hungry eyes of the ghost and pulled out his quill… and stared down at it. "Ah, it's broken." The ink had disappeared as well.

"I be having one here som-" Gilderoy cut off the ghost of with a raised hand.

"No need, it is my duty to my fans to provide them with autographs under my own power." It was a heavy burden, oftentimes almost too heavy. Hours spent scribbling away, wrist aching. But Gilderoy was a courageous man, a self-sacrificial one. He pulled out a razor out of his breast-pocket. Enchanted to remove all facial hair upon even coming near his face, this would be the first time he'd use it mundanely.

Gilderoy pricked his thumb enough to draw blood, soaked it up with the quill tip, and let his hand travel alongside the spear's shaft, ignoring the blinking eyes and trying to find the place where he could sign. "What's your name old chap, need to dedicate this to someone," Gilderoy asked as he finally found a free spot that didn't have too many eyes. _To my dearest fa-_

"Salaza- What are thou doing!?" The ghost shrieked as he focused enough to see what exactly Gilderoy was trying to sign with.

"Huh, that's weird name, Salaza Whatarethoudoing." Gilderoy did not have time to ponder the quirky naming conventions of wherever Salaza came from as all the eyes along the spear shaft, upon coming in contact with his dripping blood, exploded into golden sand that enveloped him.

He didn't even have time to shout an apology for not being able to finish the autograph as the sand invaded his body through his opened mouth. He blacked out to the frothing mad face of Salaza Whatarethoudoing. Poor guy, must have been mad for not getting an autograph.

-/-

Gilderoy awoke to a flashing sky of purple… Well, it was actually lilac, his favourite colour. Then he noticed he was lying on his bed. He arched his back painfully as a sudden pain assaulted his mind. "Gaahhhh!"

The pain didn't stop. Spasming on the bed eventually led to him falling off of it, the pain of his bottom impacting the floor distracting him, for a short moment, from the pain in his brain.

Faster than ever before in his life, Gilderoy sprang back up, turned to the nearest wall and punched it as hard as he could, ignoring the fact that he was punching a poster of himself in the face. The broom-flying Gilderoy on the poster huffed, shook his fist at him, and flew off somewhere else. Not that the real Gilderoy noticed, cradling his broken right hand on the floor as he was.

The pain slowly abated as he sat there crying. The fact that his head didn't feel like it was being subjected to the Cruciatus anymore calmed him enough that he realized that he wasn't where he last remembered being.

He was in his room at Hogwarts. He was a professor here. Right. Well, not for long. The school year was ending. The school might even close with the now-death of three students. One of them that abhorrent Boy-Who-Lived.

And wasn't that a fitting moniker? Boys weren't really known for their smart decision-making. And 'who-lived?' That didn't apply any more.

He picked up his wand from the nightstand and froze. Weasley and Potter had divested him of his wand. God knows where they'd put it with their grubby little mitts, but it most certainly had not been his nightstand.

With his head cleared, the only thing distracting him now was the comparably miniscule pain of a broken hand, so his mind raced. He had been signing an autograph for one of his deceased fans, down in the lattice of tunnelworks connected to the Chamber of Secrets. Why couldn't he remember what happened afterwards?

Gilderoy snapped his fingers and ran to his trunk, where, in a hidden compartment, he had a small pensieve. It had cost him an arm and a leg, but worth it when he had to interact with people who had access to the truth potion or knew legilimency.

The pensieve was empty, the tell-tale glow of white, luminescent memories missing from the small bowl. It hadn't been used at all actually, by anyone, for nearly a year now. There would be a residue of the memories clinging to the bowl if it had been used in the last month or so. Which brought forward the concerning possibility that someone had dared to take away his memories.

Crucial memories.

How had he gotten from the chamber of secrets to his bed, fully healed? Expect for his now-broken hand of course, which he'd inflicted on himself.

Had the death of the two boys been connected to him in any way? If so, why was he in his room, sleeping peacefully, when he should have been in a ministry holding cell? Not that he would have stayed there for long. The minister was a fan of his.

Gilderoy glanced at his Gilderoy Lockhart calendar (slightly naughty underwear edition) and froze.

No. That… That was the wrong date.

He must have hit his head harder than he'd thought. He just hadn't noticed the injury because he was so amazingly pain-resilient from all his adventures. Gilderoy chuckled to himself and headed out towards the hospital wing to get his hand fixed. He could have done it himself, but poor Poppy needed something to do.

While some of his memories had gone obviously ajar, somehow, and someone had pranked him by turning his calendar backwards, it was impossible that other faculty members would be similarly affected by whatever had blanked out what must have been a day of his life.

And a hell of a story as well! How had he spun the jaunt into the Chamber of Secrets into something that would allow himself to rest in bed leisurely? Poppy would surely tell him. People loved recounting his adventures to him. Why he had no idea. He'd been there himself after all!

-/-

"Getting hurt on your first day in Hogwarts already, Professor Lockhart?" Poppy tutted at him as she lead him to a bed and forced him to sit down.

First day? Gilderoy remembered it. He had arrived a week before school started to talk about the curriculum with his fellow teachers, to furnish his rooms, and to familiarize himself with the castle again. Misdirectional thing that it was.

But why did Poppy think that? Apparently he'd gotten away with only losing a day. The poor matron had obviously lost almost a year of her memories. He could play along, though. Seek out someone else later.

"Alas, it is my fate to always be confronted with the unknown. This time, it required quite a hefty punch to get rid of it!" he proclaimed. The unknown in this case being the sudden pain in his head which he had distracted himself from by breaking his hand. Also the mysterious circumstances of seemingly apparating into his bed and falling asleep.

Which was odd, since Gilderoy wasn't capable of apparition, and it was supposed to be impossible to do in Hogwarts either way.

Gilderoy had hardly gotten his hand healed, bandaged, and warned about not using it before he was out of the door in a flurry of movement. His feet stomped on the ground and his left hand autographed his name onto the bandages of his right. Being able to write with both hands was an important skill, after all; dual autographing was a life saver. Though in the solitude of signing his fan letters, he did prefer to do a better job with his right.

Gilderoy was growing more and more confused as he walked through the halls of the castle towards Flitwick's office. There were no students in sight. He hadn't spotted one of the blighted little buggers anywhere from his walk to the hospital wing, either. It was supposed to be a Sunday. They should be everywhere!

Had he slept through the weekend? Had he slept through the entirety of what was left of the school year? Or had he lost his memories of the two months before it ended? Poppy had said that it was his first day here, but that couldn't be. It was even more unlikely that every single student at Hogwarts shared her delusion of it still being summer vacation.

Gilderoy halted just as he was about to open the door to the charms classroom. He could just use a tempus to see what the date was. Silly him. He'd mostly stopped using magic at all once he'd reached his goals of fame and glory, so he had nearly forgotten that the spell existed.

Gilderoy wobbled his wand in front of himself and said a slightly longer than necessary incantation. He wanted to be sure, after all. "Show me the time _tempus._ "

Golden lights started flowing together before his eyes, forming the 8:34 at first, and then the 24.8.1992.

Well. That was mildly concerning. He'd never heard of an occasion of the spell being wrong after all. How fortuitous that he was standing before the room of the resident charms master. Gilderoy knocked and entered.

"Ah, good day Gilderoy, what can I do for you?" Flitwick asked kindly, the half-goblin reading some essays at his desk.

Gilderoy was struck by the sincerity and intonation of the greeting. He had long since considered the respect of his colleagues lost to him. Being outshone by the new professor on the block couldn't have been easy. A deep part of him whispered that they had lost respect for him because they themselves were too behind to understand the complexity behind his lessons. That deep part was obviously right.

"There is something wrong with my tempus charm, Professor Flitwick, and I thought to myself, why not consult the resident charms master?" Gilderoy needed to lead the conversation along a path that would reveal if Flitwick also believed that it was the start of the school year, not the end of it.

Flitwick set aside his reading material and hummed to himself. "Were you going through spells to teach your class? I teach the spell in their second year so it won't be necessary to teach it, though I wouldn't mind you doing it earlier."

Gilderoy shook his head. "No, I simply forgot my to put on my watch today and used the spell for the first time in a while. It shows me the date 30th of May, 1993." It was better to say what the time was from his own perspective, in case the professor was also suffering under a bout of delusion.

Flitwicks eyes widened at that. "Oh boy."

* * *

 **Leaving the first chapter slightly short because I want to gage the interest in this story before commiting any more time into writing it.**

 **I'm not really a review whore, but neither am I interested in writing something that will have a view count lower than its word count.**


	2. Chapter 2

**You may I have some Lööps Bröthers**

 **Chapter 2**

* * *

The professor sat there, frozen for a minute or two. Gilderoy could see the thoughts whirring behind the half-goblin's eyes.

Gilderoy leaned back and waited for the professor's conclusion. Though if the man needed so much time to simply conclude that the spell had cast itself wrong (the fault was definitely not on his side), he would be quite disappointed.

"Have you ever," Flitwick started tentatively, "been involved in time travel?" He finished as if hesitating if he should even ask.

Gilderoy ran his hands through his hair as he contemplated the question. Had he ever been involved in time travelling? He had attempted to gain access to a time turner back in his student days by taking on more classes. So much more time to spread the word of his greatness!

But he'd been declined. His grades back in school had been good, but not that good. He couldn't imagine the personality and trust requirement not having been fulfilled. Why, back in the day he'd spent many days chatting with professor Flitwick just like he was doing now.

Back then professor had invited him under the guise of detention. It would have been, after all, quite unseemly if others found out that the former duelling champion had simply wanted to hear the tales of Gilderoy's adventures during his summer. It almost brought a tear to his eyes as he imagined how Flitwick must have railed against the ministry's decision to decline him the usage of a time turner. He'd been the man's favourite student.

The professor must have been saddened by him departing the school after getting his NEWTs. It wasn't something Gilderoy had thought about much, but now that he was one himself, he noticed that professors were human too. They had hobbies, interests, and people they admired, like how Flitwick admired him. And for this love that the man bore for his former student, now colleague, Gilderoy was willing to trust the man's word.

Time travel. It made sense, certainly. If he was in the shoes of that ghost, powerful enough, thankful enough for his greatest idol taking time out of his day to give him an autograph, he would have also given a boon in return.

And honestly, what better boon was there than being sent to the past? Now he didn't have to even attempt spinning the tale of three children dying under his watch into something positive. It hadn't happened yet! And never would if he had anything to say about it.

He was Gilderoy Lockhart, Order of Merlin, Third Class, Honorary Member of the Dark Force Defence League, and five-time winner of Witch Weekly's Most-Charming-Smile Award.

Dumbledore had begged him on his knees to take a post as a professor here, drawing him in with promises of Harry Potter being present. A boy who had turned out to be all-too-disappointing. Delinquent even! Holding his professor at wand point.

That subject aside, teaching was not at all a very rewarding job. Fellow professors were jealous of his ability; students were too foolish to comprehend the hidden meaning behind his lectures.

And a basilisk! Gilderoy simply made his living with adventures. It did not mean he actually wanted to go through one. And even if he did, he certainly would not start with a sixty-foot-long snake that could kill him with eye contact.

No thank you. His life was worth more to him than the prestige he could gain from a professorship. He was a half-blood after all. The snake would come after him eventually, and it wasn't like he knew who the culprit was so he could reveal them.

"Your lack of an answer speaks for itself," Flitwick said solemnly, hands intertwined and propping up his chin. "I won't tell anyone." The man nodded his head and chuckled. "Thankfully you came to me with the tempus spell, and not someone with the ministry. I imagine you know what is done to people who have time-travelled, and have therefore been tight-lipped about it."

What. Gilderoy had lost track of the conversation after the revelation that he had time-travelled. So he simply nodded along with the last words he'd heard and stood up. Probably praise about some adventure of his. "Yes, yes, dreadful business that, sometimes it is better indeed to not speak of some occurrences." He opened the door and was halfway out before he turned around again. "Thank you for the help. I must convene with Albus now."

Flitwick waved him away and turned back to his papers. Gilderoy did not depart. He turned around casually, right hand raised in a gesture of "one moment please." Flitwick looked up, saw this, and continued reading.

When the professor reached for his quill, he brought his hand down in a gesture he'd practised hundreds of times, wand holster ejecting the wand into his hand and pointing directly at the now-scrambling-for-his-own-wand Flitwick.

" _Obliviate"_

 _Gilderoy watched in part as the man's head thunked down on the table, but he was mostly focused on the memories now flitting through his mind. He had to thank his half-muggle heritage here._

 _The usual way wizards edited the mind of the person they'd cast the spell on was quite complicated. He'd found out quite early in his training for the spell that he could simply imagine the memories as a videotape and simply cut out parts of it and replace them with the person getting drowsy and falling asleep to explain the position they would find themselves in once regaining consciousness._

 _Flitwick's case was even simpler. He only had to cut the videotape in one part, since he'd just had the conversation. And thus he did, replacing it with the feeling of drowsiness and the man deciding to lay his head down for a moment to rest his eyes._

Then he was out. Gilderoy shook his head to clear it. The spell was always slightly disorienting, especially when one attempted more finely-tuned manipulations. Brute memory erasure, when one did not care about the target, didn't even taken one into their mind.

He glanced at Flitwick and considered if there were any other edits he should go through with. But then he reminded himself that he shouldn't dawdle. The earlier he was out of Hogwarts the better.

He had a resignation to turn in. "I mean really, basilisks, in a school. Isn't Hogwarts supposed to be safe?" he tutted to himself as he traversed the moving stairs towards the headmaster's office. Halting before it, Gilderoy made sure everything about his appearance was in order. Clothing, unruffled. Hair, coiffed. Hands, bandaged. Shoes, shined.

Then he remembered that he didn't know the current password to Dumbledore's office.

He huffed and glanced at the frozen gargoyle. The one that usually received passwords. Well. He was quite sure of his peop-err, gargoyle skills.

Putting on his famous smile, he approached the stone construct. "Hey old chap, mind letting me in? Need to discuss some fairly important business with Albus. Might even be an autograph in it for you," Gilderoy whispered to it conspiratorially while theatrically glancing around making sure nobody was present.

The gargoyle cracked open an eye. How rude, surely he was worth both? "No," it said in a gravelly voice, after which it closed its eye.

Gilderoy was dumbstruck for a few moments, stunned at the fact that his trusty trick had failed to work this time. Then he huffed, turned around and stormed off.

Well, if Dumbledore didn't want to see him, then he didn't want to see the old goat either. The resignation would have to be done via owl!

-/-

Gilderoy became quite glad about the fact that Dumbledore had not been present when he'd tried to speak with him. The time travelling experience had clearly rattled him more than he'd thought. He'd become so emotional that he forgot to remove any incriminating memories before meeting someone probably capable of legilimency.

Hells, he'd even obliviated Flitwick before going there. The event had been so recent that it would still be floating at the surface of his thoughts for a few days. That wasn't mentioning the question of what Dumbledore would do to a man who'd managed to time travel. Surely the old man would be interested in the knowledge of how to return to his past, and his younger body.

Who knew? With a second, third, and a fourth chance, Dumbledore might even manage to become more accomplished than him. Although Gilderoy had to suppress his doubt at that particular thought. Dumbledore just didn't have the necessary flair in comparison to him.

Maybe the man would attempt to become his apprentice. Past Gilderoy hadn't had much to do with the man, so he might be tricked into accepting him as a student.

Hopefully that would never come to pass. Teaching in general was already quite unpleasant, and he had taught brats. Old men were probably even more set in their ways and unable to comprehend his lectures.

 _Der Albuz_

 _I h3reby resgn 4om my pozittion as Defense againct the Darc ArTs techer._

 _Yours truly,_

 _Gilderoy Lockhart, Order of Merlin, Third Class, Honorary Member of the Dark Force Defence League, and five-time winner of Witch Weekly's Most-Charming-Smile Award._

There. Hopefully that horrendous spelling would distract Dumbledore from the fact that he was contractually obligated to serve a year as the professor of DADA.

Gilderoy summoned a house-elf and ordered it to deliver the letter to his owl. Then he started packing.

Which was quite a daunting task, to be honest. This was the third time he'd had to do so in the last year. Now, on arrival back then, and then for him leaving before the other professors actually forced him to confront the basilisk.

A truly foolish notion. Gilderoy had experienced many adventures, taken more than just one limelight, and sharpened his skills against many a foe. It would be quite a disservice to his colleagues if he took from them one of the few chances available at experiencing everything he already had.

Not every problem needed to be solved by Britain's foremost explorer. Why, that had the potential of creating quite the dependency! If he had to let others suffer tribulations so their inner flame grew brighter, then so be it. The fame he would have gotten from defeating the basilisk was a worthy sacrifice for strengthening Britain's spirit overall. Especially the spirit of teachers, who could then go on to spark the flame in new generations. Just like he had done!

There was a spell for packing. Gilderoy remembered knowing it once. He wished he still did, but he was not a man who shied from physical labour. He proved this by shoving the last poster of himself into the (breaking at the seams) trunk. He was sweating, but then it was quite laborious being successful. One had so much property that needed to be taken care of and packed away in the case of a relocation. Not all of the property was voluntary either!

Why, his fans sent him things all the time! Sure, the things had a habit of not being useful. But it wasn't like he could throw them away. They didn't get to meet him personally very often. Material possessions and fan letters were their only real way of letting him know how much they loved him. Gilderoy Lockhart was loved by the people, and he loved them right back. There was no one who could deny this very simple fact.

Of course, while some of the students were undoubtedly his fans, the ones who managed to lighten up even the most dreary a class, there really wasn't anything he could do against what was coming to Hogwarts this year. There were many fans, but there was one Gilderoy Lockhart. The distress it would cause amongst the people of Britain if he were to fall was surely larger than the individual pain of one person being petrified for a few months.

It was a tragic rendition of 'the needs of the many over the needs of the few.' It was simply for the greater good.

Although…

Gilderoy could leave some clues as to what the creature was… Which technically speaking, should help in its defeat. Now, he couldn't leave those clues to the professors. They wouldn't believe it without knowing its source. Student then.

He rushed off to the library after shrinking and lightening his trunk with a tap of his wand. People had realized fairly quickly that they were dealing with some sort of creature. Which was coincidentally his area of expertise. And Miss Granger had been able to narrow it down to a basilisk through clever deduction.

Well, at least that's what the two ruffians had been babbling about on their way to the chamber back then. They might have just been delusional, but the snake skin they'd found down in the chamber supported the theory of a basilisk. And it did make sense really.

Direct eye-contact with a basilisk killed. Indirect eye contact, while weakened should still have a plethora of other negative effects. Like petrification for example. This would also explain why nobody had died. Poor Creevey had gazed at the thing through his camera lens as he was trying to sneak a peek at his favourite professor, him!

Clearwater had been making sure she looked her best before entering his classroom with a mirror and Finch-Fletchley had been conversing with the Gryffindor house ghost, meeting the basilisk's gaze through its incorporeal form.

Though why one would converse with a ghost was up in the air… If the lad had been looking for courting advice he could have just asked Gilderoy. Or maybe he had wanted to court Gilderoy himself. The lad's wish of a romantic escapade would have to remain unfulfilled. Mister Lockhart, Gilderoy Lockhart, was a man of too much duty to dally in relationships.

Arriving at the library, he made sure that the librarian wasn't present before pulling out a copy of _Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them_.

Finding the correct page, he wrote on the margin of the entry. _If meeting the gaze of a basilisk through a medium, such as a reflection, the victim will only be petrified._ And his initials underneath that, of course. _G.L._

With a simple spell, the sentence was copied over into the other _Fantastic Beasts_ books and Gilderoy was able to depart once again, knowing that he had bested the darkness of Hogwarts with his immeasurable wit.

Someone would eventually link the initials of G.L with the name of the greatest adventurer that had ever lived who had walked the halls of Hogwarts, no matter how shortly. He could probably claim some credit for solving the case when the people realized the connection.

Though the question of why he simply provided vague information and not actively done something while he had the chance would undoubtedly come up. The solution was quite simple, now that he brought up the issue. Having the ability to monologue innerly was quite important for problem solving, apparently. He would simply claim that he had written in the books when he himself had been a student here, not as a professor!

Gilderoy, having arrived in his empty room, took some floo powder in his hand and threw it into the fireplace. "Leaky Cauldron." He stepped into the fireplace and stepped out into the famous pub with nary a falter. Movement was an art, and Gilderoy was a master.

He mused about how much the proprietor of the pub had paid the ministry back then to have the entrance to Diagon Alley installed behind his building as he walked out into muggle London to his home.

Having everyone muggleborn and those unable to apparate or floo have to use the entrance was definitely great advertisement. And thus, despite its general state of griminess and the ugliness of Tom, the barkeep, the Leaky Cauldron was famous. Good for it, and its owner, he guessed. It was a building, so it wasn't his direct competition in the battle for fame and glory.

Not that fame and glory was all that glamorous most of the time. People liked to ignore the hard work that had to go into such an endeavour and the sacrifices famous people, like him, made. Why, he was unable to even live in the wizarding world without getting mobbed by fans. Surely, a rather humbling occurrence, but it did get tiring after the 394th time.

And thus, he'd moved into the muggle part of London. It also had to do with the fact that he could obliviate muggles indiscriminately, while doing so in a magical population would quickly get him caught. It was also smart to live away from magic when one wanted to avoid the magical press. For example, when one wanted to sample girls of ill repute.

It would be quite the scandal (as always) if it got out. The fact that most magical brothels and escorts were directly linked to larger publications was unproductive for his fame. The muggle world also simply had a greater variety of women.

He entered the twenty-floor apartment building he lived in.

Another good thing about muggles was that magicals were simply unable to blend in with them, unless they had heritage there themselves, like he did. And so it was pathetically easy to spot his fans when they once again found his place of residence.

Like for example, an older man with a peg leg and eyepatch, wearing what basically amounted to a very extreme goth ensemble. Black eyeliner, fishnets on his arms, a band t-shirt that nobody had ever heard of, and a pitch-black trenchcoat.

An older man who was waiting in front of the elevator leading to his penthouse apartment on the top of one of London's highest buildings.

Well. That was a bit of a bummer. That was the only real way to get to his home, unless he willingly scaled 20 floors of steps. Normally he was perfectly content in leading a fan into a secluded corner, giving autographs, and convincing them to not reveal his address to any unsavoury people, but he'd had a very long day.

So he simply attempted to walk past the goth-pirate acting as if he didn't know him, which he didn't.

Keyword being _attempted_.

" _Stupefy"_

Gilderoy was caught by a mobilicorpus before his unconscious body could hit the floor.

* * *

 **Dumbledore only really invited Gilderoy to Hogwarts because he knew the curse would reveal him as the fraudster that he is. He probably had no hard evidence, so this was his only way. But when Gilderoy suddenly resigns, its more morally just for him to just spend the political capital needed to get him behind bars than to risk him stealing another persons accomplishments.**


	3. Chapter 3

**An: I'm not planning to continue this, what's posted below is the first scene of what would have been the third chapter of this story. I thought it was funny enough that some people might enjoy reading it despite this being discontinued. If you like my writing style you can check out my other Harry Potter story "malicious, magical, malfoy", or find my original works on RoyalRoad under the name bor902, I recommend you start with "living a long life as a legend" if you do so.**

* * *

Gilderoy woke up in what he assumed was some sort of prison cell.

He also didn't remember how he had gotten here, had he time travelled again?

There had never been an occurrence where he'd been locked up before so he assumed not.

Time travelled forward then?

Touching his face spoke against it.

No beard like all the prisoners in the books. His head also wasn't hurting this time, something that had probably been caused by the memories of the future being shoved into his past body.

So time travel was out. Where was he then?

He was lying on a small cot attached to the gray brick walls by rusty chains and there were iron bars inlaid on the wooden door.

He stood up to determine the probable state of the door.

Locked.

Searching around the room, tickling the walls, and charming the shitbucket also didn't reveal any exits. He was locked in the cell.

He sank down to the floor slowly, landing on his knees. "No."

"No." He rasped out. It couldn't be, but if it was. His greatest fear had just manifested itself into reality. Someone had kidnapped him to turn him into their sex slave, and looking by the bloody manacles hanging of the walls they weren't into the vanilla type of coitus either.

Gilderoy could understand why, he looked quite ravishing, even to himself. Wait. His memories. They were coming back slowly. Images leaking into his mind.

He remembered the man who'd stunned him, he'd been waiting for Gilderoy before the elevator. A peg leg?. The picture of an ugly old man dressed like a goth popped into his mind, as if to taunt him with its suddenness.

Gilderoy fainted.


End file.
